Hope this isn't too stupid...

I’ve done some reading, and I am really excited about this Modx deal. However, I can’t seem to find a solid answer to one question. Is there a way to integrate this CMS into an existing site, or do I need to build one from the ground up? I think maybe in the long run Modx is probably overkill for me, but it seems this will do the job of allowing me to perform updates, blog style I guess, without having to manually edit every page as I go. If this has been answered somewhere else, I apologize. Thanks!

No question is ever too stupid, provided you did a bit of searching beforehand... one thing could have been better is the title of this post, which is not very explicit

But back to your question :

Quote from: tuberbob at Mar 20, 2008, 02:54 PM

Is there a way to integrate this CMS into an existing site, or do I need to build one from the ground up?

Of course there is, but the question might be asked the other way "Is there a way to integrate my existing site into MODx templating system ?".

The answer is yes, of course.
Static data can easily be turned into dynamic data.


1) Building the templates

The first step is to list how many different page structure you have in you site. Each of those will be used to build a "MODx template".

For each template (but maybe you’ll just have a single one, I don’t know... have a URL handy for your site ?), just copy and paste the HTML structure of your page, getting rid of any content.

Then copy and paste every recurring content (e.g content which repeat itself on several page) such as menus, footer into a chunk. It means you create a chunk for your menu, your footer... etc and copy paste the current content into it. We’ll see later how to handle dynamically the menus, replacing your static menus by menus handled with the Wayfinder snippet.

Now, if you have built a modern website, you also have stylesheets. Place those in your MODx install, usually in "assets/templates/mysitename/mystylesheetname.css"

2) Importing the data

Your current website has content, which is directly stored with the site’s structure as HTML files.
MODx stores content in the database, mainly in the modx_site_content table.

The work you’ll have to do here is transfer the content into the database, by creating documents in the manager, selecting the templates you have imported at step one, and placing your content... in the content field and saving the document. (Note that MODx has a feature to import HTML pages but it’s not that reliable and I wouldn’t go this way personnally)..

Once you’re done, you’ll more or less have a replicate of your old website, only it’ll be powered by MODx

Of course, this little tutorial is not comprehensive as there would be too many items to list here, the best way to learn is maybe to start by playing with the dummy content which you can choose to populate your MODx install during the installation process and then experiment with what I said above...

Hope it helps...